Spiders are one of the most
feared creatures in this world right after snakes, or they may share the top
spot for phobias for most people. Despite the immense fear and loathing of
spiders at sight of a spider it can’t be denied that they are one of the
fascinating creatures. They have strangely unique and peculiar life styles and
are found all over the world (except Antarctica) among various environmental
conditions. About 40000 species of Spiders have been recognized from all over
the world, with lots of new species yet to be recognized for sure. Of all those
species only two families of spiders are non-venomous, they lack venom glands.
Apart from those two families all other known species are venomous. But only
large species of spiders have a fang large enough to penetrate the human skin.
It can be said almost 95% of all spiders can’t harm humans. Red Back spiders
found in Australia and the Black widow spiders are few of the spiders that kill
human beings.
Spiders belong to the class
Arachnida, and they differ from other Arthropods in having only two body
segments; Cephalothorax and abdomen. The spinnerets, through which spiders
extrude silk is located in the abdomen with numerous silk glands. All known species of Spiders are predators. Most
people associate spiders with webs, but not all spiders construct webs. Wolf
Spiders, Jumping spiders do not construct webs to trap preys.
The Jumping spiders belong to the
family Salticidae containing more than 500 genera and 4500 described species.
Jumping spiders are one of the most beautiful spiders. They have best vision
among all the other spider species. They are easily distinguishable by the
arrangement of their eyes. All jumping spiders have 4 pairs of eyes, with two
front eyes being comparatively large as compared to lateral ones. They are
found in variety of habitats from forest to grasslands, mountainous regions and
even common in houses. They are active hunters; they do not construct a web to
catch their prey. They are diurnal as they have to depend upon their vision to
hunt and pounce on their prey to catch them. They feed upon other insects. Some
of the jumping spiders can jump more than 50 times of their own body length,
and even though it doesn’t make a web to catch prey, they do release a filament
of silk in case the jumping fails. They have venom gland that helps to paralyze
their prey. Most jumping spiders do not live for more than a year. The jumping
spiders are believed to be extremely smart. The mating ritual in most species
includes moves almost as similar to a dancing. One of the most beautiful
spiders has to be Peacock spider (Maratus
volans). (fig below)
Peacock spider (Maratus volans)
Though most people associate
spiders to be creepy and scary, the fact is they are one of the most important
organism in the chain of life, they are friends of humans as they help to
control the files and insects, pest harmful to humans and other living forms. Almost
everyone I know fears spiders, most of them hate spiders, but I see no point in
hating spiders at all, they can’t even hurt us if they wanted to, except the
few species. But the point is there are more species of animals that are far
more dangerous than Spiders. In case of spiders the hate is based on a book judged
by its cover. They aren’t creepy if you know them and you ought to know them to
judge them.
Phidippus putnami
1 comment:
A very nice presentation. Good illustrations with photographs.
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